


23 Hours, 59 Minutes, 59 Seconds

by Jenthetrulysly



Category: Hawaii Five-O (1968)
Genre: Angst, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Ohana, The road eventually leads to slash - hooray!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:57:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenthetrulysly/pseuds/Jenthetrulysly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The taller man lifted a gloved hand in a countdown. Three. Two. One.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is dedicated to Traw, who is quite possibly the most awesome person ever in the history of fandom. I've encountered some very dark moments in my fandom life, and she is the light which gives meaning and hope and happiness to me. 
> 
> When I wanted to give it all up, she was always there to hold my hand.

**_Residence of Danny Williams, May 1971_ **

In the dead of the night, the door opened soundlessly before two men entered the bedroom. Save for the soft sounds of the young detective’s breathing, there was complete silence as the men separated and walked over to the opposite sides of the bed. The taller of the two, who was standing in front of the sleeping detective, extracted a small bottle and a linen cloth from his pocket. 

Looking to his companion, he opened the bottle before pouring a small amount of the solution onto the cloth, holding his breath while he tucked the bottle back inside his pocket. Meanwhile, the other man slowly removed Danny’s pistol from the nightstand with gloved hands. He made sure that the safety was off before putting the gun on the floor, far from the detective’s reach.

The taller man lifted a gloved hand in a countdown. 

Three. 

Two. 

_One._

In perfect synchronicity, the man behind Danny grabbed his hands and threw his weight onto the young man, pinning him to the mattress. The abrupt sensation caused the detective to wake with a start just as a wet cloth dripping with chloroform was shoved under his nose, over his mouth. The detective’s cries were muffled by the cloth which was pressed harder against his face, his attempts to overpower the assailant on top of him failing as his strength ebbed away with each passing second.

Danny held his breath for as long as he could until dark spots appeared in his field of vision as his head spun. A wave of nausea washed over him from the stench of the chloroform as his hands were wrenched behind his back before duct tape was wrapped tightly around his wrists, tight enough to cut off the circulation. He could feel his hands begin to go numb. 

He tried to kick one of his assailants off of him but it was no use. The man had slid down the length of his body and was taping his feet together. He was running out of breath, running out of strength, and finally succumbed to the inviting darkness when the effects of the chloroform finally kicked in, slipping into the cold and silent void of unconsciousness. 

“C’mon, Pete,” The taller one admonished as he hoisted the unconscious man over his shoulder. “Do your thing already.” He watched as Pete smoothed the bed sheets out and retrieved Danny’s gun from the floor to place it back on its customary place on the nightstand.

“Done.” Pete replied. “Quick, we’ve got 10 minutes before the doorman reaches the service entrance. Let’s get the heck out of here.”

**_To be continued..._ **


	2. Chapter 2

**_Hawaii Five-O Offices, Iolani Palace_ **

Steve McGarrett was not in a good mood.

Having spent most of the morning on the phone trying to negotiate with the state accountant always left him in an irritable mood. Rubbing his left temple, he was sorely tempted to tell the man that the criminal element did not run on a budget and neither should they. It was one thing to file out expense reports following every case (that he could understand) but limiting the amount of funds available for disposal was a most serious handicap that he and the rest of his team didn’t need.

Speaking of which, he glanced at the digital clock on his desk, then pointedly to the patch of wall roughly where Danny’s office was. It was almost 9am and his second-in-command had not turned up for work.  He desperately wanted to foist this phone call onto his underling, so he could get back to working on the current case Five-O had on its hands; a child pornography ring that preyed on the drug-addicted homeless youth.

The case set his teeth on edge. He loathed people who prayed on the weak, but systematically selecting the most vulnerable members of society for their sick, perverse sexual fantasies was something else. Forget Murder One, Steve was going to try and get them locked away for everything he could, and put away for the longest time possible.

Finally, as if sensing the danger that he was in, the state accountant ended the call, and Steve slammed the handset down onto the receiver, before rubbing a tired hand over his face. He had been a little snarkier than usual, but that could be attributed to the fact that the accountant had ambushed him before he had been able to make himself a cup of coffee.

Walking out of the office, he glanced at Danny’s cubicle, and a frisson of worry passed through him. _Where was Danno?_

The cup of coffee he had made that morning had gone cold, and with a grimace he dumped the brew down the sink, rinsed the cup before reaching over to grab the coffee pot to pour himself a fresh, steaming cup. After a few tugs of the Kona brew, he felt more himself, and as the coffee settled down in his stomach, so did a feeling of dread.

He walked into Kono’s cubicle, where the Hawaiian detective was busy reading the psychological reports from the victims affected by the pornography ring. His face as an ashen grey, and the chocolate muffin that sat on the edge of his desk remained untouched. Kono was more upset then he was willing to let on.

As Steve’s shadow fell over him, he looked up. “Do you need anything, Boss?”

“Danno didn’t mention that he was going to be late this morning, was he?” Steve inquired.

Kono hesitated. If Danny didn’t mention anything to Steve, then he probably had good reason to. If Danny hadn’t said anything, then he most likely would have wanted to keep it a secret. Then again, he hadn’t said anything to the Hawaiian detective either, so there was no harm in telling the truth. “No, but Danny’s never been one ta be late without telling ‘neone. You think he’s in pilikia?”

“I don’t know yet,” Steve replied, just as Chin entered the small, cramped space. Or tried to, at least. He settled for hovering by the door. Two pairs of eyes turned on him.

“Steve,” Chin began. “Danny was ‘sposed to come with me to follow up on that tip off we received from Sammo this morning.”

“Sammo?” Kono scoffed. “He’s a pay to play kinda guy, Chin. He’ll just tell ya what ya want ta hear.”

The Chinese detective laughed. “Yeah normally I’d agree with you, but the leads are kinda dry right now, bruddah. We’ve got no takers.” Turning his attention back on Steve fully, he asked. “Did you pull Danny off to do something else?”

Now the dread was turning to alarm. Still, Steve did his best to keep his voice neutral. “No, I haven’t heard from Danno at all since yesterday evening.” He reached over Kono’s desk and pulled the phone closer to him. Snatching up the handset, he dialled Danny’s very familiar number. After 3 minutes, he hung up.

Okay, Steven McGarrett was not a man to panic.

Except when it was warranted.

Breezing out of the cubicle (Chin had just enough time to move out of the way), Steve walked past Danny’s cubicle and the secretaries’ desks and out the front door, slamming it closed and hoping against all odds that Danny was okay. His gut was telling him that something was horribly wrong, and his gut was often right. As he rushed down to his car, he realised belatedly that if Danny was going to be late, he would have called through to let him know.  

Praying that this momentary lapse of judgment wasn’t going to cost him dearly, he ran down the wooden koa stairs and out the front of the palace, where he jumped into his black Mercury sedan and peeled off, tyres screeching as he stomped on the gas pedal.

_Danno,_ he prayed to an unknown entity he wasn’t sure he believed in as he tried to avoid letting his imagination get the better of him, _please be okay.  
_

* * *

_  
_

**_Unknown location, Oahu_ **

Gradually, he became aware of the dull throbbing headache that was slowly engulfing his senses. As he became aware of the stench of damp and mould, Danny tried to open an eye, but found that some thick material was stretched across his eyes.

He tried to move an arm but found that he was restrained, the warmed up metal of the handcuffs biting into his arms, which were raised above his head. An attempt to move his feet met further resistance, and he realised that they were restrained in a way that left him spread eagled, wide and open.

Slowly, the detective felt warm, soft fingers cradle his head, and he flinched involuntarily at how… tender… the hand was, before its partner slowly slid the blindfold off his face. Blinking rapidly to try and sensitise his eyes to the sudden rush of fluorescent light, his mouth went dry when he saw who the person sitting next to his bed was.

Danny opened his mouth to say something as raw, desperate panic flooded him but he was silenced by a finger against his mouth, cutting off any further protests.

“I was worried that you were never going to wake up,” she said softly, her eyes shining with worry. His clear blue eyes followed the trail of her hands as they moved towards her hip, retrieving a set of keys which jangled quietly as she moved to unlock his restraints. Her hand hovered above his right wrist. “Pete, get his legs, will you?”

Danny whipped his head around to see a burly Samoan man with curly black hair and deep set eyes smirk at him, before moving to the end of the bed and making light work of his left shackle. The second-in-command tried to aim a kick at the man called Pete but he was ready, and grabbed Danny’s foot in a large hand.

“Oh Danny,” the woman said, disappointment filtering through her soft tones. “I had hoped that you were going to cooperate but seeing as you won’t be,” she paused to look at Pete, who nodded, before shifting his grip up the length of Danny’s leg as the detective tried to kick and pull it away, before the Samoan gave his left ankle a mean twist.

Danny couldn’t help the scream of pain that tore out of him as tears welled up in his eyes at the sudden flash of pain, before his foot was set gently down. Even at this early stage, he could at the very least it was sprained, but he wouldn’t be surprised if it was broken.  The detective continued to struggle, but the woman had a very firm grip and before he had a chance to even contemplate fighting her she had pulled him into an upright position before he heard the click and tightening of another set of handcuffs on his wrists.

“Now that you’ve woken up Danny, we can get down to business,” the woman said, as she grabbed his arm and pulled hard to get him to walk. He stumbled just as soon as he was lifted onto his feet, and grimaced at the wave of throbbing pain that came with every attempt of his to walk normally. Pete grabbed his other arm and they steered him through a door into a room with an observation table, and what looked like various instruments of torture around the room. Thick coarse rope sat on the counter which gleamed under the fluorescent light, and knives, saws and pliers sat in a corner of one of the counters on the other side of the room.

Momentary hysteria bubble up and he tried to dig his heels into the ground, but it was useless and he was relieved when they walked past the observation onto the other side, towards another door. The woman paused to unlock the door before she pushed it open, the creaking echoing in the otherwise silent room. Danny was amazed that no one could hear his heart beat; it was hammering away madly in his chest.

This room had no windows, which told him he was underground and in some sort of basement, before he was thrown to the floor and collided roughly against the collection of baseball bats, some wooden, some metal, that leaned against the wall.

**_To be continued_ **


	3. Chapter 3

**Undisclosed location, Oahu**

_There had been a lot of blows, and he remembered the sound of their playful laughter. He concentrated on protecting his head as he curled into a foetal position, raising his arms in a vain attempt to prevent a head injury. Metal connected with bone and muscle as white hot pain flared along his back, and there was a crunch when one of his attackers had thought it was a good idea to get one of the baseball bats against the wall and whammed the thing into his shoulder. There was another crunch of bone before he heard the woman say, “Pete, don’t spoil the kid and have all the fun, put that bat down.” The woman’s voice sent trails of cold terror down his spine, and he found himself involuntarily shivering._

He hissed and tried to shy away from the pressure being put on his ribcage. The hands pressed more insistently and he groaned, the skin there was highly tender.

Danny had been beaten, stabbed and generally run through the mill over his tenure with the state police unit, but this put a new perspective on what he had thought was pain. This was _agony._ His whole body felt hot with the heat of swollen flesh and his skin was sticky and itchy; his clothes clung uncomfortably to his toned frame. He could barely open his eyes this time around, they were pretty much swollen shut. He could see a sliver of white light, but that was about it.

“They better be more careful how they treat you, Danny,” the gruff male voice said in a soothing tone, before the detective felt an ice pack being applied to the tender spot there. It felt wonderful as the cold spread like dull fire across his abdomen, numbing the worst of the pain. “I don’t know how much more you can handle of this physically.” 

Danny tried to ask this guy more questions, but it was rather difficult given the cloth gag they had stuffed into his mouth. It was more of a sadomasochistic power display then anything, as Danny steadfastly refused to give his captors the pleasure of seeing him scream. Except for the one torn out of him by that Pete guy, he had been mostly silent, his breath hitching more and more as the blows rained down on him like thunder. His arms were sore, and felt as heavy as lead as the skin around his wrists was rubbed raw. The man had put some sort of cooling cream on them, so the slow burn of chafing was barely noticeable.

A loud sigh issued next to him. “This is only the beginning I’m afraid. I’m sure you noticed the playroom when they escorted you to the pen. Always gives me the creeps that room,” The man said as he continued to methodically apply icepacks to Danny’s forehead, his abdomen and he felt his gut clench in fear. _Playroom?_

There was the scraping of a chair as it was moved further away from him, before his injured ankle was propped up on a pillow, and his trouser leg pushed up. “They look at you like a piece of meat, it’s sickening,” the man continued as he began to wrap what felt like a crepe bandage around Danny’s ankle. “First they want to beat you to a pulp, then they will enjoy breaking you down bit by bit until you are only a former shadow of yourself. Believe me, it makes me sick-”

“George!” Pete’s voice boomed, making Danny jump in his skin. He had been so intent on listening to the man’s voice he had failed to notice the thick clunk of the Samoan’s footsteps into the room. “Stop telling him your life story and hurry up! We ain’t got all day!”

The man sighed. “Okay Pete. Whatever you say.” Danny listened until the footsteps faded, and the only sounds in the room were the even breaths of him and George. The detective felt the wrapping of his ankle continue. “Get out of here while you can, is all I can say, because you won’t like the next step of their play time,” he paused, as if in hesitation. “Because the next step is when the countdown really starts, this is just the warm up phase.”

Once his leg was set down on the pillow, Danny felt his shirtsleeve being pushed up, before a rubber tourniquet was slipped around his bicep. His hands curled into fists and he ignored the dull waves of pain shooting up from his wrist to his heart as his raw wrist rubbed harshly against the unyielding metal of the handcuffs.

“You need your rest and your strength. You’re going to need them if you want to have any chance of getting out of here alive.”

There was a momentary point of pain when the needle pierced the skin, before he slowly felt himself relaxing, his heartbeat slowing, and despite himself, his eyes drooped shut and the blank darkness of unconsciousness settled over him like a shroud.

 

* * *

 

**_Apartment of Danny Williams_ **

Using the key Danny had given him after that business with the Vaughn kid, Steve let himself into Danny’s apartment after a solid round of knocking yielded no results. The familiar warm tones of beige and brown greeted him, but instantly the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. Something seemed… disturbed… in the air. The fact that the curtains hadn’t been drawn and the windows were shut meant were very odd. Danny was a creature of the surf and of sunshine, who enjoyed the sun and the sea more than Steve ever did, who would always make sure that the warmth of the sun permeated wherever he was. 

He pulled out his gun and switched the safety off. The click was audible in the thick silence of the apartment. He looked across the living room to the door where he knew Danny’s bedroom was, which was slightly ajar. No light pooled out from the room, even though it faced the east and light should have been spilling out into the darkness of the living room. Inching steadily closer, he cautiously back himself against the wall, before taking a deep breath and pushing the door open as he scanned the room for any sudden movement, his gun following the trail of his sight.

There was nothing, nothing except for a little note placed on Danny’s bedside table, right next to his second-in-command’s gun. In the dim light filtering through the edges of the thick curtains, Steve could make out his name in Danny’s familiar, untidy scrawl. 

Lowering his gun, the lead detective pulled out a handkerchief from his breast pocket and used it to gently pick up the note, which had been folded in half. He opened it, and found himself staring at Danny’s writing.

_Steve,_

_I’m sorry that I have to do this, but I need a break. I need some time to think things through, because that kid on the mountain, Bill Shem, he could have been me. I have done some things that I’m not proud of in the line of duty, and I just need some time to sort some thoughts out._

_Don’t bother looking for me, you won’t find me until I’m ready to come back._

_D._

The hand clutching the piece of paper shook, and Steve resisted the temptation to crunch up that piece of paper and hurl it against the wall. He was furious at himself for letting this happen, because if Danny had been experiencing some sort of traumatic shock following the shooting up at that bunker a few weeks ago, Steve had failed to notice. He had been totally oblivious to the fact that the younger man needed help, doing… whatever he thought he should be doing, and neglecting the person who perhaps needed his help the most.

It was a momentary pang of guilt though, before Steve remembered that Danny had seemed well at ease over the past few weeks, and that the young man had been tending to his duties with the usual sense of aplomb. There was no indication that Danny was troubled, and when it came to his feelings, he was an open book to Steve. He counted on being able to take his cues from the younger man when it counted. This was very sudden, and even though it was in Danny’s writing supposedly, it made no sense. 

Extracting a plastic bag from his pocket, he placed the folded note in there before exiting the apartment, and walking back down to his car. The dark haired detective snatched up the mic and requested to be patched straight through to Five-O. After a few moments, Chin’s voice crackled down the line. 

“Yeah, Boss?”

“Get Che to send some of his boys over to Danny’s apartment. I want the place swept through with a fine tooth comb, nothing left unturned-” 

“Steve what-” 

“-and put out an APB on Danno,” he continued, as if he had never been interrupted. “He’s gone missing! Make that first priority, we have no time to lose!”

“Copy that.” A note of urgency threaded through Chin’s voice at the news before the connection was severed.

Slamming down the mic, Steve climbed into his car with the intention of driving to HPD labs. Che was going to have a look at this piece of paper and tell him what he wasn’t seeing between the lines.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a rather frightening real life event.
> 
> Okay I'm exaggerating, but the letter is based on a true story.
> 
> Stay off drugs, kids.

**_Undisclosed location, Oahu_ **

 

Danny awoke to white light shining into his eyes. He was lying face up on some sort of metallic surface, and given how the metal was still cold, he hadn’t been lying there for very long. Feeling vaguely like an insect specimen in a biology class, he was surprised to find that the handcuffs that he had worn since his capture were now replaced with thick, rigid leather ones. He attempted to move is arm and discovered that the leather cuff was attached to a chain, which jangled softly with movement. 

“Ahhh, good,” the woman said in good humour. “You’re awake.” She moved closer to him, before running a clawed fingernail down the side of his face. A shiver shot up his spine and he tried to shy away from her touch. 

“Your jaw must be feeling so sore by now,” she said sweetly, pressing gently at the bulge of his cheek. “But before I can remove it for you, you will have to earn that privilege. Now, are you going to be a good boy, or are you going to be a bad boy? Either way, you simply have to give us a show.” She looked away from him to the other side of the counter. 

Danny’s gaze followed her, and despite the swelling, his eyes widened in alarm before white spots appeared in his vision as there was the click and blinding flash of a photography camera. 

 

* * *

 

 

**_Apartment of Danny Williams_ **

****

Sighing, Che Fong brushed some more fingerprint dust onto Danny’s bedside table. Outside he could hear the other members of HPD Forensics continue their work, the soft hum of their voice filtering in through the open bedroom door. So far, he had managed to dust half of Danny’s bedroom for fingerprints and a few had popped up. He suspected that they were Danny’s but he couldn’t be sure until he took the sets of prints back to his lab for matching. A small smile broke across his face when he considered how many of these prints would belong to women.

“Sir!” A young male voice called out. “I think I’ve got something.”

Gently setting down his equipment, Che rushed out of the room and past the other members of Forensics who were busy collecting hair samples and whatever they could find as evidence. Steve wanted the book, and he was going to get the book.

The young man who had called out was standing by the door, a magnifying glass clutched loosely in a gloved hand. He recognised him as Eaton, one of the more zealous members of his small team. “What have you got here?” 

“There are three minute scratch marks on the outside of the doorknob,” he paused to indicate to the doorknob from the outside, before raising his magnifying glass so that Che could have a look. “There is a few scuff marks but these three are very precise, very deep marks, No key could have done that.”

The forensic expert looked through the magnifying glass and nodded. There were three very deep cuts into the metal of the doorknob near the keyhole. At first glance it looked as if someone was trying to find the keyhole and missed, their lock picking implement catching the metal instead. “You could be onto something there. Take a picture of that. Good job.”

 

* * *

 

 

**_HPD Forensics Laboratory, Honolulu_ **

****

A few hours later, Che was hunched over a microscope looking at some of the hair samples that his team members had picked up when Steve cornered him. “Hello,” he spoke to the room at large. “You want to tell me what’s going on here? I doubt your curiosity into Danny’s personal life extends this far.” 

“Danno’s gone missing,” Steve replied curtly. “Left without any word, except for this.” He pulled out the plastic wrapped letter supposedly written by Danny, trying not to dwell on how long Danny could have been missing, or what could have happened to him by now. 

Taking the letter into his hands, the forensic scientist pulled the light closer to where he was sitting before lifting the letter out of the plastic bag with a pair of plastic tweezers. Removing the slide with the hair he was examining, Che placed the letter under the microscope and examined the writing, adjusting the magnification as he needed. A few moments later he asked, “Do you have a sample of Danny’s writing?” 

The lead detective reached into his pocket before pulling out a small piece of paper with Danny’s writing on it. The forensic scientist thanked Steve as he removed the letter from under the microscope to slide the note for closer examination.

There were a few moments of tense silence before Che announced. “This person obviously knows Danny’s handwriting very well, or managed to acquire a good sample of it.” 

Che slid off his stool and beckoned for Steve to come a bit closer. “Everyone’s writing is unique. Our writing is a form of self-expression, so when we write the lines of our letters flow, and are very natural. This writing, while to the naked eye might look like Danny’s but when you look at it under the microscope… here, see for yourself.” 

Steve peered down the microscope, and had to adjust it until he could see the individual strokes of the writing. “It’s a forgery?” 

“Yes. When you look at Danny’s writing under the microscope, you can see the differences very clearly. I’ll show you.” Steve moved out of the way so that Che could remove the sample from the letter, before replacing it with another sample. “Take a look at this.”

Steve resumed looking down through the microscope, and under this magnification, the differences were extremely obvious. Danny’s writing flowed naturally, whereas the writing on the letter was halting, as if someone was vey carefully tracing or imitating another person’s writing. The ink was much more blotchy, as if the person had paused every so often with the pen nib pressed to the paper. “Do you have any idea who would be capable of doing this?” he asked.

“Personally, no. But you should limit the range of your investigation to moderately skilled to very skilled forgers. If this was the work of a master forger, we wouldn’t have been able to tell the difference, even with a microscope.” 

Moving away from the counter and the forensic expert, Steve started to pace the limited space of the forensic lab, trying to piece the puzzle together. “What else did you find, while you were out there?” the lead detective growled as he fixed his cobalt blue stare onto Che, who seemed completely unfazed by it.

“Someone broke into Danny’s apartment, Steve.” Che confirmed as he walked over to the other side of the counter and picked up three reports next to a stack about half a foot high. “There were three marks on the doorknob which were caused by lock picking instruments,” he answered as he passed Steve the files in succession. “There were traces of chloroform on Danny’s pillow which suggests that he was drugged and lastly, we’ve found samples of hair which, based on the darkness, length and coarseness, we believe belongs to a Polynesian male in Danny’s bedroom on the floor next to Danny’s bed, amongst various sets of fingerprints we are trying to match.”

“Keep pushing, Che,” Steve ordered as he looked around the laboratory, before his eyes settled on the phone sitting on the corner of the counter. Snatching the handset up, he dialled through to the Five-O offices. “Kono, I want you and Chin to get down to HPD and talk to Chief Dann. Get him to spare some men and put out word on the coconut wireless about Danny’s disappearance. Rustle all your stoolie pigeons, squeeze all of your snitches, leave no stone unturned!” 

Slamming the phone back down, Steve spun on his heel and hurried out of the laboratory. There was no time to lose.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**_Saint Andrew’s Cathedral, Honolulu_ **

 

Closing the door behind him, George entered his sanctuary, the silence enveloping him and making him feel at peace with the world. The chapel was blissfully free of people at this time of day, and he had always been drawn to churches ever since he was a small child. There was something extremely comforting in believing that God was watching over you. Even despite all the hardship in his young life, God has always been there with him.

He walked past the empty rows which would have been crammed with parishioners had this been a Sunday to take a seat at the front of the altar towards the left hand side. Clasping his hands together as he closed his eyes, he began to pray for guidance, as well as for the blood on his hands to be washed away.

Slowly, he became aware of the soft murmuring of a female voice near him, and he opened his eyes to turn towards the direction of the prayers. He saw Nancy Vashon in supplication, deep in prayer. From this angle, she reminded him of the harmless old ladies who wouldn’t have been capable of hurting a fly. He shook his head, laughing at his own naïveté.

Nancy Vashon was anything but a gentle old lady, since Dominic’s descent into megalomania was infectious along with his penchant for cruelty, the lady of the house was exactly like him. While Dominic loved the heady thrill of power that came from ordering people around to do his dirty work for him, Nancy was exceptionally fond of doing it herself, and was especially fond of the knife. She loved blood, and her son Chris was quickly following in her footsteps. In a few years, she would have had a pupil.

Turning his direction back to the crucifix in front of him, he wonder whether standing by and letting someone get killed was as bad as doing the killing yourself.

 

* * *

 

**_Five-O Offices, Iolani Palace_ **

 

Steve had just crossed the threshold into the Five-O offices when Jenny ran towards him, a small envelope clutched in her left hand. “Steve, this came for you while you were out,” she said as she handed the envelope to him.

Taking the thin envelope, he thanked her before flipping it around to see if there was a return address. There was none. Sliding his thumb under the flap and tore the top part of the envelope open. Seeing what looked like the top of a glossy photograph, he instantly was out on alert. Walking over to Jenny’s desk, he placed the envelope down and removed his clean handkerchief from his pocket to try and gently slide the photograph out of the envelope. A wad of neatly folded paper, cream in colour came out as the photograph fell onto the floor. 

Bending to pick it up, his stomach roiled when he was able to identify the person in the photograph. The only recognisable thing was the familiar sandy coloured curls, but they were matted with a wet layer of red blood that had begun to dry to a dull brown. Danny was lying on some sort of metallic counter, and it looked like he had been doused with red paint, which was steadily dripping down the sides, down his body. The photograph had been taken in a dark room, so the flash made the red of Danny’s blood brighter, and the bruising and swelling of his skin more pronounced. 

From behind him Jenny shrieked and backed away from him, her scream causing Chin and Kono to come barrelling out of their cubicles to stand on either side of the very shocked, very worried lead detective.

“Auwe!” Kono breathed softly, his exclamation like thunder in the sudden silence of the office. 

Steve then picked up the wad of paper and unfurled it gently, the paper crinkling as he straightened the lined paper. The initial horror he felt when he saw the picture of Danny was slowly fading to shock and then righteous fury which bubbled away in his gut. Hot, acidic bile rose in his throat as he scanned the contents of the letter. 

The obviously photocopied letter was addressed to him, and written in very shaky handwriting. It looked as if someone was trying to hide their natural handwriting. It said that he was going to go to hell for all of the sins that he had committed against the people, for all of the pain and all of the suffering he had brought to countless families having torn them apart to shreds. It also said that Danny was going to be the one to pay for his sins, but that there was one way to absolve himself of his sins and save Danny. 

With a raised eyebrow, Steve flipped the first page of the letter over, and discovered that the remaining pages were actually photocopies taken from various sermons and passages from the Bible. A quick scan of the sermons revealed that they mostly dealt with the end of the world, and stressed that a person had to repent for their sins if they wanted to have any hope of salvation when the end of the world did occur. There were random annotations on some of the sermons, and his hands clenched tighter around the pages such that he had to force himself to ease his grip. Running a handkerchiefed hand along the page, his fingers skimmed across the smooth paper.

By the time he reached the tenth and last page, his hand was shaking and his jaw was clenched so tightly it had started to ache. He hardly noticed it though as his eyes narrowed at the information in front of him. The letter was left unsigned. 

“Steve, that’s just pupule,” Chin murmured. The Chinese detective had gone ashen. “Totally pupule.”

Without a word, he placed the envelope, photograph and the letters in one of the plastic evidence bags he always carried with him. The dark haired detective then passed it to Kono. “Get this down to Che,” Steve ordered. “Get him to run every test they’ve got in their arsenal on these. I want to know everything there is to know about them.”

With a shaky nod, Kono rushed out of the office. 

“What is happening with HPD? Have either you or Kono spoken to Chief Dann?” Steve demanded.

“Yes, I have Steve. Chief Dann will be able to spare us some manpower, and Kono and I were just about to head out to do some preliminary research.”

“Good.” Steve moved past Chin toward the door, about to head off to do some preliminary questioning of his own when Chin’s next question stopped him dead in his tracks, his hand hovering an inch above the doorknob. 

“Steve,” Chin asked, “What does any of this mean?”

“This means,” the lead detective replied through clenched teeth, “that whoever this person is, whatever they have against him,” he hesitated, “against _me,_ it’s personal.”


End file.
